INSIDE DEAL: The Internal Revenue Service agreed not to pursue tax issues, audits, and even indictments for President Trump, members of his family, and businesses in exchange for the President dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the agency.

  The deal was announced in a one page order quietly posted on the Justice Department website that also announced the establishment of what amounts to a victims’ fund for people prosecuted by the Justice Department under the Biden administration.

  Trump had sued the IRS because an independent contractor had leaked his tax returns revealing that the President and his wife reported negative adjusted gross income for four of the six years between 2015 and 2020, and paid $750 or less in federal income taxes in three of those years.

  Audits and resulting adjustments could have put Trump on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

  In his one page order establishing  the $1,776 billion fund for people who believe they were unfairly investigated and prosecuted by the Biden administration, acting Attorney Gen. Todd Blanche effectively gave the Trumps blanket immunity for anything they may have done wrong or illegally up to the date of the order, May 19th. It says, the United states is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDEED from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims.” 

  Questioned in a Senate hearing about the compensation fund, Blanche promised transparency but dodged on whether January 6^th rioters and convicts would qualify for payments.

  Blanche used to be Trump’s personal lawyer and Democratic Sen. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland accused him of still acting like it. Blanche angrily replied, “The fact that I used to be President Trump’s lawyer is just a fact. But I am the acting attorney general, so don’t say the president’s former personal lawyer will do something. The acting attorney general will do something.”

PRINCIPLE OVER PARTY: In another win for Donald Trump, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie was defeated in his party’s primary for an eighth term in office. 

  Trump had loudly campaigned against Massie, who had confronted him about the Epstein files and was opposed to the war on Iran. Massie said last night in his concession that, “There is a yearning in this country for people who will vote for principles over party.”

  Trump tolerates nothing less than total submission. The President called Massie “the worst and most unreliable Republican Congressman in the history of our Country.”

  Long Island’s George Santos would be so pleased to hear that.

OUTBREAK: Health officials report more than 130 suspected deaths and 513 cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. The head of the World Health Organization said he is “deeply concerned about the scale and speed” of the outbreak.

  Ebola, which is spread by body fluids, kills about half the people who get it. Among those infected is an American missionary doctor.

  Authorities say that budget cuts under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have hampered response to the outbreak

THE SHOOTING GALLERY: The security guard at the Islamic Center of San Diego called for a lockdown when two gunmen ran past him on Monday, then engaged in a gunfight in which he was killed, investigators say. Amin Abdullah was the father of eight children.

  Two other unarmed men in the mosque also were killed.

  Reports say that the mother of one of the teenage shooters who later killed themselves reported to police that her son was about to do something terrible. The police say they were looking for the suspects before the shooting started.

INFINITE SCROLL:

— The top lawyer at the Treasury Department resigned Monday after the creation of the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization fund”  that could soon make payouts to President Trump’s legally-troubled political allies. Brian Morrissey, the Treasury’s general counsel, resigned without explanation just seven months after he was confirmed.

— President Trump moved ahead on Monday with plans to allow 10,000 more white South Africans into the United States as refugees while such protection is mostly closed to people from every other country in the world, The NY Times reports. Trump has proposed lifting the record-low refugee admissions level of 7,500 to 17,500, reserving the additional slots for white Afrikaners. 

— Trump gave reporters a tour of the White House ballroom construction project bragging that, “It’s drone proof, if a drone hits it, it bounces off.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Greg Hyman, an electronics wizard and toy inventor who was a co-creator of the wildly popular Tickle Me Elmo doll, the red Muppet that giggled and nearly sprinted out of stores when it went on the market in 1996, died on May 1st at his home in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 78.

THE SPIN RACK:  A 56-year-old grandmother died in Manhattan after parking her car and stepping into an open manhole. Con Edison, the New York power company, said a passing truck had dislodged the manhole cover only minutes before. Bystanders said they were unable to rescue Donike Gocaj while she was down there screaming that she was dying. — The New York Knicks came from 22 points behind last night to beat Cleveland in game one of their NBA conference finals. The Knicks haven’t won the NBA championship since 1973.

BELOW THE FOLD: College graduates have been booing commencement speakers praising the benefits and revolution of artificial intelligence.

  Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed by roughly 10,000 graduates at the University of Arizona when he claimed AI would “touch every profession”.

   At the University of Florida the stadium erupted in jeers when real estate executive Gloria Caulfield called the rise of AI the “next Industrial Revolution”.

  Some surveys have found that 70 percent of college graduates believe artificial intelligence is a threat to their chances of finding a job.

  But if it’s any comfort, Glendale Community College outside Phoenix used AI rather than a human to read graduate names and ended up skipping hundreds of graduates.

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